The Impact of Immediate and Delayed Corrective Feedback on Iranian EFL Learners’ Willingness to Communicate

The present study investigated the impact of immediate and delayed corrective feedback on Iranian EFL learners’ willingness to communicate. To attain the purpose of the study, 45 females intermediate students that were roughly selected according to their previous grades and their assigned  level in language school were chosen to participate in this study. Then they were divided to three equal groups: Experimental group 1(immediate feedback), Experimental group 2 (delayed feedback) and control group. In the first session, WTC questionnaire (MacIntyre ,2001 modified by Pourya Baghaei and Ali Dourakhshan) was administered to all groups as pretests. In group 1 the students’ errors were corrected by the teacher immediately after committing but in the second group, the students’ errors were written by the teacher and her comments were given to them when they finished their tasks. For the control group, the routine procedure of New Headway intermediate was followed. After about 12 sessions WTC was repeated as posttests. The findings revealed that immediate and delayed corrective feedback have a significant effect on EFL students’ level of WTC. The results, also demonstrated that experimental group 1 (immediate feedback) outweighed the other two groups in relation to their WTC. The findings have implication for pedagogy as well as further research.